Re: 10/20/00 - CBS Marketwatch/60 Mintues: Teen defends stock-promotion actions; 16-year-old settled with SEC for $285,000
Teen defends stock-promotion actions
16-year-old settled with SEC for $285,000
By Steve Gelsi, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 5:18 PM ET Oct 20, 2000
NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- A 16-year-old who has settled SEC charges over alleged pump-and-dump schemes that netted him about $800,000 said in his first interview that he didn't do anything wrong.
Jonathan Lebed told the television program "60 Minutes" that he "wasn't posting any kind of false information" and that the stocks he plugged under assumed names emerged from genuine research on his part.
The segment is scheduled to air Sunday. See segment from show.
Lebed's father Greg Lebed, said that at least Jonathan "didn't sit behind a garage smoking pot, or stealing wheels off a car."
The family has a new $40,000 Mercedes, thanks to Jonathan.
Lebed, the youngest person ever to be charged with illegal stock dealing, promised the Securities and Exchange Commission he'd stop manipulating stock prices.
He turned over $285,000 to the SEC to settle civil charges that he committed fraud in stock deals that netted him $800,000.
SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt pointed out that Lebed "used fictitious names. He made predictions . . . without any foundation.
"The purpose . . . was not to help investors . . . but rather to line his own pockets as soon as he hyped the price of the stock."
Lebed's lawyer, Kevin Marino, said, "I don't think . . .you could draw a principled distinction between what he did and what is done every single day of the week on Wall Street."
The SEC announced Sept. 20 that it had settled fraud charges with then-15-year-old Lebed. It was the first time the SEC had ever brought charges against a minor.
The Cedar Grove, N.J., teen settled charges without admitting or denying anything.
The SEC charged Lebed with carrying out a plan on 11 separate occasions to buy blocks of shares in thinly traded microcaps.
Within hours of making a purchase, Lebed sent "numerous false and/or misleading e-mail messages," primarily to various Yahoo Finance message boards, touting the stock he had just bought, the SEC said.
CBS, which airs "60 Minutes," is a unit of Viacom (VIAB: news, msgs) , which also owns a large stake in MarketWatch.com, the publisher of this report.
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Steve Gelsi is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com.
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